Right, it’s only Thursday, but for reasons too complicated (and unimportant) to deal with in any detail, today’s post will perform the tying-up-of-loose ends and other site-related matters usually handled on Friday.

STARTING WITH THIS MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT: THE NEWS GUY WILL TAKE NEXT WEEK OFF.

Yup, you heard that right. The whole week.

Bad timing because the Legislature will probably finish over the weekend, leaving much to be disclosed and analyzed. But that’s the way the cookie crumbled. Some things have to be done when they have to be done. Next week is when this trip has to be done. The News Guy will not even be back in Vermont until late in the week. As the TV network anchors say, “we’ll see you again…” (this is false, of course; they won’t see you at all) on Monday, May 18.

(But the site will not be totally abandoned; comments will be accepted).

Now to update the fate of some of the legislation discussed earlier:

–As predicted, H. 176, the bill that would effectively register all young men for the draft when they got their drivers licenses was defeated;

–As predicted, HR 446, guaranteeing higher prices to producers of electric power made from renewable energy, passed the Senate. But the 16-to-10 vote was closer than expected, and perhaps not enough to override Gov. Jim Douglas’s likely veto.

If all four senators who weren’t there – Democrats Claire Ayer of Weybridge and Susan Bartlett of Hyde Park; Republicans Vince Illuzzi of Derby and Diane Snelling of Hinesburg – voted for the override it would pass. And perhaps two of the four Democrats who voted no – Richard Mazza of Colchester and Richard Sears of North Bennington – could be persuaded to switch on the basis of partisan loyalty, which in this context is a euphemism for ‘the chance to stick it to Douglas.’

But the other two Democrats – Matt Choate of St. Johnsbury and Robert Starr of North Troy – are probably firmly against the bill. They’re from the Northeast Kingdom, where one wind power project has already been approved in Sheffield and another in Lowell is in the works.

Interesting. The conventional wisdom holds that most people favor wind power projects, and most of the poll results seem to support that conclusion. But smart local politicians – and both these follows would seem to qualify – know their territories.

Worth looking into in greater detail.

If wind power is less popular in the Northeast Kingdom, perhaps part of the explanation lies with the behavior of the wind power companies. Reading over his posts of Monday and Tuesday (Sun, Wind and Noise) the News Guy feared that perhaps some readers thought he concurred with the renewable energy community’s view of itself as local, environmentally responsible, and generally admirable, as opposed to those impersonal corporations such as Entergy, which owns Vermont Yankee.

No doubt some are. But not all the solar/wind developers are Vermonters, or even Americans. And when it comes to arrogance, high-handedness, and…well, let’s just say a disinclination to be candid, Massachusetts-based First Wind, which is about to put wind towers on a mountaintop in Sheffield, is right up (down?) in Vermont Yankee’s league

Since last Thursday’s post (Vermont is Homeless) the News Guy has been excoriated in comments, by e-mail, by phone, and once (though most courteously) even in person, for suggesting that two studies about housing in Vermont over-stated the extent of the state’s housing affordability problem.

One criticism was right on the money. The post stated that “Clearly… the authors of  “Between a Rock and a Hard Place,” (did not know) this little fact: At least 71 percent of the people of Vermont — more than in most other states — live in owner-occupied houses.”

Tough talk, huh? Too bad it was wrong. Right there on its very first page the report says, “Vermont can boast a robust homeownership rate, 72.8 percent in 2008.”

How could anyone miss that? Possibly (this is explanation, not excuse, there being no excuse) the result of reading on the screen instead of on paper. Whatever the reason, apologies to John Fairbanks who wrote the report for the Vermont Housing Awareness Campaign.

And the criticism (bless it) keeps coming. Yesterday’s argument was that if anything the studies understate the difficulty Vermonters have in buying or renting decent digs because they assume that it’s OK for folks to pay 30 percent of their income for housing and utilities, and 30 percent is too much.

It is. The News Guy is old enough to remember the slogan, “a month’s rent should be no bigger than a week’s pay.”  One’s rent or mortgage payment should be closer to 25 percent of one’s income. Otherwise, people are paying too much for shelter, and don’t have enough left over for food, clothing, transportation, and fun. Fun is important.

But the News Guy is not about to withdraw his conclusion that in some ways the studies painted a bleaker picture than is warranted. What they did not include was any correlation between income and age.

There is such a correlation. By and large, younger working people earn less than older working people. They are also more likely to be single or childless, and therefore not to need the two-bedroom apartment that the studies (quite reasonably) used as their yardstick. If a 25-year-old single person, or a 25-year-old childless couple, can’t afford that $914-a-month two-bedroom apartment, who cares? They’re just fine in a one-bedroom or a studio apartment, which perhaps they can afford.

What the studies failed to demonstrate was that there are a large number of people who need a two-bedroom apartment who can’t afford one. It’s possible that those figures are unattainable right now, just one year before the next Census gathers the latest data. But in that case the reports should have noted the absence of the information.

Two more quick points: Nationally, there is a housing glut, with declining prices. Now these reports tell us there are not enough houses in Vermont, and they’re too expensive. That’s not entirely inconsistent; Vermont had the smallest housing “bubble,” with less overbuilding. Also, as “Between a Rock and  Hard Place” did point out, most of the decline in housing prices is in the more expensive houses, little help for the middle-income family that wants to buy a house.

And what about discussing the likelihood that houses are too expensive because they’re too big? All over the country,  yes, even in Vermont, contractors are building huge houses; bigger profits that way. Obviously, the builders are meeting the demands of their customers. But in this country, demand for almost everything – cars, clothes, houses – is to some extent created by the producers, the advertisers, and the culture. Together, they have succeeded in convincing some people that they “need” a semi-mansion for the benefit of…what?  Their standing in the community? Their self-esteem?

Either way, these houses are expensive to build, buy, heat, and light. Not to mention that they are UGGG-LEE (the picture above is from Florida; but you get the idea). They look like they were designed by a computer program; perhaps because they were. Somebody should write a report about how, along with the shopping mall, the office park, the Urban Renewal-created chain hotel/civil center/parking garage complex that has ruined scores of American cities, the luxury residential subdivision is transforming America the Beautiful until one of the ugliest countries in the world.

These are good days for supporters of wind power in Vermont. In February, the state Supreme Court turned down a challenge to the Public Service Board’s approval of the proposed wind towers in Sheffield, removing the last major obstacle to development of that  16-turbine, 40-megawatt, wind generation facility.

At about the same time, officials of Vermont Electric Cooperative began talks with the owner of land on Lowell Mountain about buying power from a 17-tower wind generating plant he’d like to put up on his mountaintop. A new company called Kingdom Community Wind said it plans to apply for a Certificate of Public Good for the project late this year.

Lawmakers are cooperating, too. A state law that went into effect last year encourages electric utility companies to get more power from renewable sources. The federal “stimulus” plan includes “provisions to benefit the wind industry, including a grant program for renewable energy developers and a loan guarantee program for developers and manufacturers,” in the words of the web site of the American Wind Energy Association.

Even Gov. Jim Douglas, while not reversing his stated opposition to large, “industrial” wind facilities, has ignored the issue of late, perhaps aware that the top energy officials in his own administration seem not to share his concerns.

In fact, except for the people who live right near where the towers are slated to be built – with their blades extending 420 feet into the air and emanating a constant  hum –  almost nobody opposes wind power.

And those opponents, of course, can be dismissed as NIMBYs (“Not in My Backyard)  rather than public-spirited citizens trying to protect the state’s mountain vistas and environmental integrity.

Especially because the environmentalists are gung-ho for wind power. The Boston-based Conservation Law Foundation, generally considered the most uncompromising environmental group active in Vermont, features on its web site a “climate change call to action for New England  (which) defines five steps our region must take in five years to confront the climate threat,” including: “Build 2,000 megawatts of new wind power.”

The Vermont Public Interest Research Group (VPIRG), challenges the state to “build renewable power like wind, solar and biomass to keep the lights on and create good-paying jobs(rather than) stay dependent on dirty and dangerous sources like Vermont Yankee and fossil fuels.”

The Vermont Natural Resources Council (VNRC) is somewhat less enthusiastic. Still, Executive Director Elizabeth Courtney said, “we are pro-wind.”

Green-group endorsement helps explain why the general public seems to be on the side of building the wind towers. Though they should probably be viewed with some skepticism, such polls as have been taken on the matter show that most Vermonters favor developing wind power.

Nor is there any big mystery about why environmentalists are for more wind power. They are convinced that the greatest threat facing the world today is anthropogenic (that’s the fancy way of saying “human-created”) global warming. Humans create this warming primarily by burning fossil fuels – coal, oil, natural gas (though that last one isn’t as bad) in their cars, their factories, and to generate electricity.

So the more electricity that is produced without burning those fossil fuels, the less fossil fuel will be burned, putting less greenhouse-creating goop in the air and therefore easing (or at least not exacerbating) global warming. Right?

No. Wrong.

Or at least doubtful.

Unless the expansion of wind, solar, and other renewable power sources is accompanied by some mechanism to reduce the demand for – and therefore the production of – electricity from coal and oil.

The reason, according to many experts (and not refuted by any) is that the human demand – or at least the American human demand – for electricity is effectively infinite. The more that is produced, the more that will be consumed, as our technological and innovative (and somewhat hedonistic) society creates more electronic gadgets.

“Residential energy use has increased 23 percent over the past decade, as efficiency improvements have been more than offset by increase in air conditioning use and the introduction of new applications” said the most recent report of the Energy Information Administration.  By 2030, the report said, “total electricity use in the residential sector increases by 20 percent from 2007…”

So even if, as envisioned in the bill passed by the U.S. House earlier this week, non-fossil fuel power were to make up 25 percent of the total electricity used in 2025, the U.S. will still burn more greenhouse gas-producing coal and oil than it does now.

Unless, that is, the increase in solar and wind power is accompanied by something to raise the price of fossil fuel-generated power. In that case, wind power might well replace power produced from coal and oil instead of just supplementing it.

“I think that’s what cap and trade is aiming at,” said VNRC’s Courtney. ” If we can cap the amount of dirty carbon fuel that we produce, we can force ourselves into finding other sources.”

Cap and trade, in which the government sets a limit on the amount of carbon that can be emitted, and electric utilities have to buy permits to emit their share, is central to President Barack Obama’s  his energy policy. Right now, though, that proposal faces tough sledding in Congress, where almost all Republicans and some Democrats view it is a de facto tax increase.

It is, though probably not the $3,100-a-year per household tax hike that House Republican leader John Boehner proclaimed it to be yesterday. MIT Professor John Reilly, one of the authors of the study Boehner cited, said the actual per-household increase would probably be about $340 a year.

But it is a tax increase, and a reminder that there is probably no way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions without paying for it. Without, in fact everyone paying for it.

In Vermont, there is a mandatory cap and trade regime in effect. It even has a name – Reggie – which is not a guy, but the an acronym for the Regional Greenhouse  Gas Initiative, in which the New England states, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, and New York limit emissions from electric power plants.

But that’s not enough to raise the price of fossil fuel-produced power.

“It’s  really a very narrow program that only applies to electric generating units,” said Dick Valentinetti, the Director of the Agency of Natural Resources Center for Climate Change. It’s not economy wide. Until you get into an economy-wide program you’re not going to be able to see a substantial increase in the credits for greenhouse gases.”

None of this means there is no case to be made for wind power. It’s (potentially) inexpensive. It’s clean. It’s produced locally. It provides tax revenues for towns, generous rental income for land-owners and profits for developers (if  more from tax breaks than from actually selling electric power). But it is nether economically nor environmentally benign. The towers are unsightly to many, and could discourage tourism. Building and maintaining them requires cutting roads through wetlands, across steep slopes, and through delicate wildlife habitat.

All of which might be a worthwhile price to pay. But without some mechanism to reduce consumption of fossil fuel-based power, it will not help in the fight against global warming. Environmentalists who campaign for wind power in the hope that it will combat climate change run the risk of supporting environmental degradation in return for nothing.

Some environmentalists know that. “We don’t want to be trading one environmental value for another,” said Courtney, adding that being in favor of wind towers does not require being in favor of every wind tower proposal.

In its application for a Certificate of Public Good from the Public Service Board, First Wind, the company planning to build the Sheffield project, did not argue that the wind towers would reduce global warming. The industry is not making that claim. It is letting others do the job for  it.

There is, of course, another way to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases produced by power generation: use less power.

That does not require slower economic growth, as demonstrated in one state – this one. According to the Energy Information Administration, the average annual increase in Vermont electricity consumption between 1980 and 2005 (while the state’s economy was growing at a healthy clip) was 1.5 percent, substantially below the national figure of 2.1 percent.

This didn’t just happen. One reason for Vermont’s success in holding down electricity use, Valentinetti said, is the state’s energy efficiency apparatus, Efficiency Vermont, run by the Vermont Energy Investment Corporation (VEIC).

Common sense, then, would indicate that the public and private sector in the state would be united in strengthening this non-profit corporation so that it could continue to reduce the amount of electricity Vermonters use without diminishing their comfort or prosperity.

Apparently not. Instead, VEIC is at the center of a political quarrel between Gov. Douglas and the Legislature. Something to examine at a later date.